Survivors may get reparations, apology

All that Rosette Goldstein and Kurt Rosendahl of South Florida, and other Holocaust survivors from France living in the United States, want from the French National Railroad is reparations and an apology for the railroad's role in transporting 76,000 European Jews to the Franco-German border where they were taken by German trains to Nazi death camps. Only about 2,000 survived.

It appears that after many years of waiting, the small number of survivors from France and their family members in the U.S. may get both.

The French Foreign Ministry is in negotiations with the U.S. State Department to pay reparations to survivors from France who are living in the United States.

In the meantime, a state legislature, Holocaust survivors in South Florida and around the U.S., and members of Congress are putting more pressure on the French National Railroad, also known as the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français or SNCF.

Last week Goldstein, 75, of West Boca Raton, testified at a committee hearing in the Maryland House of Representatives after a Holocaust survivor who was to testify died suddenly less than two days before his scheduled appearance.

Maryland's legislature is considering a bill that would prohibit the state from entering a public-private partnership with any company that deported prisoners of the Nazis during the Holocaust and has not paid restitution to the deportees or their families. Foreign companies that have Holocaust ties and any of their entities also are included in the bill.

Keolis, majority-owned by SNCF, is one of four companies bidding on a lucrative Maryland light-rail commuter line.

"We're going to keep putting the pressure on," said Goldstein, whose father, uncle, aunt and two cousins were transported on SNCF trains to their deaths. "Hopefully, they are going to say, 'We are very sorry for what we did.' And they are going to pay reparations. Time is running out."

Rosendahl, 94, of Boca Raton, fled Germany after Kristallnacht and went to Belgium. He was deported to France and sent by train to the border with Germany, then transported to Auschwitz. Three years later Rosendahl survived a death march to Buchenwald, where he was liberated.

"I have been a victim and many of my friends have been victimized." said Rosendahl, whose father was killed in the Holocaust. "I want [SNCF] to apologize and I would like to be compensated."

Several South Florida members of Congress have been fighting for the survivors.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, said in a statement: "For 70 years SNCF has been attempting to run out the clock to avoid having to be held accountable for its role in the Holocaust and to escape its obligations to the victims and their families. Its role in humanity's darkest period cannot be whitewashed nor will it be forgotten.

"No American taxpayer dollars should be used to support this company until the survivors and their families receive the justice that has thus far evaded them. We should never allow any person or entity to escape culpability in this crime, especially when its excuse is that it was just following orders."

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said: "I think it's extremely important that leverage be brought to bear. They must be aware of the horrors of the past and make up for those horrors.

"They need to make amends for the 76,000 people they transferred to their deaths in the Holocaust and see that it is morally wrong for them to be awarded government contracts."

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, said: "[SNCF] evaded justice for so long. It is unacceptable to my constituents and me. The rail companies have to be held accountable."

Deutch added, "The survivors deserve to live out their lives in dignity. There's no time to waste."

SNCF is not a party to reparations negotiations between the French Foreign Ministry and U.S. State Department, Alain Leray, president of SNCF America, said in a phone call from his office in Washington, D.C. But he added, "I dearly hope that they can get a solution quickly. These are aging survivors."

Leray mentioned SNCF chairman Guillaume Pepy's January 2011 formal apology to Holocaust survivors for the company's participation in the transport of European Jews from France.

"We deeply regret it," Leray said. "We acknowledge the pain that lives on. We are very humbled by this pain. Again, we deeply regret being part of this unspeakable tragedy."

However, SNCF supplied the locomotives and engineers but not the boxcars that were used to transport deportees, he said. "These transport conditions were not dictated by SNCF," Leray said. The railroad was taken over by the Nazis and run by the German SS, he said.

Leray added, "The French state failed to protect the nation and is responsible."

Asked if SNCF would apologize to French survivors in the U.S., Leray said: "If it means to say that we deeply regret what happened, I will never repeat it enough. But we should not forget that the Nazis were responsible for what happened, not SNCF."

When he was asked if he would apologize in person to survivors in South Florida, Leray said: "Of course. Whole-heartedly, as a French Jew and a French railroader." He said he has "deep sorrow and very sincere regrets."